The Mormon Moment: Let's Not Let It Pass Just Yet

We must lovingly engage our Mormon neighbors for the gospel.

|

Ed Stetzer

[posted 11/5/2013]

More Good Foundation / flickr

A year ago on this Tuesday was Election Day 2012. Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for President of the United States, and a devout Mormon, lost the election to incumbent President Barack Obama. Throughout the election process, interest in Mormonism ...

Sorry, folks, I know the whole "Google Alert" thing brings LDS folks to a blog post like this in droves. However, we are not going to argue through all the issues here, as fun as that might be. ;-) Folks can read the LDS responses in the comments below. But, I'm going to close the comments since my Mormon friends are posting so much (but no comments were deleted, they just were coming in over and over). Here is a brief recap of research on what Protestant pastors believe on the subject, in addition to link to why evangelicals, Methodists, Catholics, and just about everyone outside of Mormonism considers Mormonism outside of Christianity: http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2011/october/mormonism-cults-and -christianity.html. God bless, Ed

Ed Stetzer

November 05, 20137:10pm

Thanks, Seth, and I understand the concern. The best answer would be simply that we did not use the term cult at all, and more scholars are moving in that direction, since the term has changed meaning over time. But, I do not control the dictionary, so I cannot deny what a theological cult is. Sorry. Best case: Christians don't say Mormons are cultists and Mormons stop saying they're Christians. By continuing to use the term Christian, Mormons are forcing many Christians to say, "No, that's a theological aberration, too far from orthodoxy to be Christian any longer, thus it is a theological cult out from Christianity." I think it would be best to see the cult designation go away and for Mormonism to be acknowledge (and be seen by Christians as) another religion with other testaments and a different Jesus. David Mason's NYTimes editorial points to a better way, "I'm a Mormon, Not a Christian." See: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/opinion/im-a-mormon-not-a-christian.html? _r

Raymond Swenson

November 05, 20137:05pm

A more fundamental contradiction with the creedal description of God is the insistence that God is a spirit without a body or passions, yet the entire doctrine of Christ is that Jesus the Son of God was incarnate, that he suffered on the cross, died, and then his body was resurrected and, after instructing the apostles, ascended into heaven, from which He will return someday. Surely the core of the Gospel message is that Christ has a resurrected immortal body, and we shall have them too. Yet the Nicene formula claims God has no body, and has no experience of either love or compassion or suffering. How can that be the God that includes Jesus of Nazareth? How can it even be the Father, as referred to by Christ in John 3:16, who "so loved the world, that He gave His Only Begotten Son" for us? This is not just a philosophical disagreement within a Creed, it is a direct contradiction of the Gospel, as affirmed in the Apostles' Creed and the Bible.

Raymond Swenson

November 05, 20136:57pm

While it is nice that people in certain denominations can claim that they are "Christians" because they proclaim their belief in the Trinity, how many of the people in those denominations can even state what the creeds say that means? The words are, as English words, self contradictory, with their repeated assertions of both three and not three., of one but not one. When you hear what they say they THINK it means, all too often they express their belief in terms that have been formally declared as heresies by the Catholic Church, such as Docetism. Most often, one hears Christians saying that God is One, but He takes on different modes of appearance for different purposes, and that each of the three "persons" is simply a different mode or "avatar" of a single God. And that is Modalism.
Frankly, I don't see Christian pastors testing people on their comprehension of the Trinity before they baptize them, so it is just words without substance in many cases.

Pop Seal

November 05, 20136:56pm

Mormons are creepy. They "nice you" into becoming one of them. then they spring the 'god on another planet' business. Their nickels and noses success is repellant to legitimate ministry. LDS missionaries had the brass to come into my office, full of misplaced zeal, and failed to understand the concept of regeneration commonly known as 'the new birth'. Mormons are not Christians, regardless of the 'nice' factor.

On this episode of The Exchange with Ed Stetzer: Dr. Darrell Bock serves as Executive Director of Cultural Engagement and Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary. He also blogs at blogs.bible.org/bock. Focus on the Family Vice President of Community Outreach Kelly Rosati The Gospel Project series continues with Pastor Derwin Gray discussing the Gospel and religion Bad church signs